Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
Rose Bruford College
Emerging from the Noise
The portfolio articulates Taylor’s investigation into complex notions of ‘noise’ and ‘inscription’ resulting from his 12-month fellowship at KHM Cologne.
The work originated in a collection of 78rpm shellac discs discovered in Cologne that provoked a process of practice-based research framed by the domains of contemporary music and digital media. These material artefacts (1929-62) were analysed as research material and a basis of enquiry into their provenance leading to subsequent discoveries regarding the cultural policy of the Nazi regime regarding jazz (1931-45), folk traditions in local dialect (Kölsch) and the continued cultural importance of the annual Carnival.
These artefacts were digitised and refactored as a digital artwork. Guidelines were sought and German colleague Specht suggested Danish academic and historical sound specialist Brock-Nannestad as an appropriate collaborator.
Hence a three-way email discussion was begun; intentions to publish findings were clear from the outset and this forms Output 1. Taylor took the main initiative in producing this piece.
The process of migrating analogue artefacts into the digital domain raised questions about the means by which original program material is distinguished from noise. Once this is considered from a historicised perspective the issues become even more complex. Contemporary listeners may focus on the characteristic crackle of shellac records – this noise being indexical to a previous era of sound reproduction. However, for listeners of the time such noise tended to be bracketed out, embracing the vision of a technological utopian future associated with twentieth century modernism.
These notions of noise and inscription (writing sound) suggested an expanded form of ‘re-writing’ this material; hence, the two visual essays included in the portfolio and the subsequent remediation of the shellac discs as a digital installation constructed in contemporary German media technology.
